Friday Round Up: Come with Us if You Want to Live

Throughout the mid to late 90s, Warner Bros. tried to reboot Superman with Tim Burton as the director and Nicolas Cage as Superman, based loosely around the popular “Death of Superman” comics. The studio spent a fortune but ultimately pulled the plug. For years we’ve heard rumors and seen the occassional costume photo and it made the movie look like something we were lucky to have avoided. But a lot of people worked on it for a long time. What would it have been? Filmmaker Jon Schnepp made a documentary about it and did a LOT of research. He spoke with Burton, the writers including Kevin Smith, the crew and gained access to all sorts of production videos, notes, models, and more. This week his documentary came out and it seems to be getting good reviews. The Death of “Superman Lives”; What Happened? can be purchased digitally or as a DVD or Blu-Ray on the official site. I’ll be watching it this weekend. Will you?

Read on for TV, toy and movie news. Has Hollywood gone too far in casting Marisa Tomei (hot) as Spidey’s Aunt May? Can the dream team directors who made The Lego Movie make something good out of a Young Han Solo movie? What have we learned from San Diego Comic Con (currently going on)? Is there really a Jason Voorhees Mr. Potato Head?!

MOVIES

I gotta get this one off my chest right away. According to Variety, Marisa Tomei will sign on as Aunt May in the new Spider-Man movie. She keeps getting younger (and hotter) each time they reboot. But this really feels like going too far. Hollywood is so awful to women after they’re 30 or so. Remember Winona Ryder playing Spock’s mom in the Star Trek reboot? She was only 40! Marisa Tomei is 50 so now she’s age-appropriate for Aunt May? That means that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man is older than doddering old Aunt May. Look, obviously Tomei is a great actress and I’m sure she can pull off a believable version of an aunt. But Aunt May was always closer to a grandmother/new retiree in age, not a parent’s age. Ah well. Not something Hollywood is going to change anytime soon.

It’s been speculated many times but this week it was confirmed – there will be a Star Wars spinoff about young Han Solo and it will be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. That’s the team that’s made 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie, as well as the TV show Last Man on Earth. Talented guys. Who should play the iconic role that Harrison Ford made famous?

Hey, here’s a photo of the new Ghostbusters team. Personally, I think Paul Feig makes really, really funny movies so I’m looking forward to it. But there’s a guy at work who acted disgusted that they’re remaking it with women. I don’t get that at all. I don’t think a new Ghostbusters hurts the 1984 original and there’s no way to make more sequels of that, realistically. I think this has a great chance to be really funny. Am I alone in that? There’s also photos of the new Ecto-1 and Ecto-2 out there.

Apparently actress Rachel McAdams has been offered the lead female role in Doctor Strange. We don’t know the exact story yet but the best guess at this point would be that she could play Clea, a sorceress who Doctor Strange eventually marries. Can anyone think of any other prominent female role in the comics? I can’t. Clea is alright. She mostly walks around in a tight bodysuit and one time she cheated on her husband with Benjamin Franklin. In fact, I think I’ll have to review that bizarre comic arc next week.

TV

Netflix’ Daredevil season 2 is currently filming and they announced Elektra will be part of the show. Cool. Important character and story for Daredevil. It seems really likely Bullseye will have to be part of season 2 as well, but no announcement there yet. As for who will play Elektra, the role went to Elodie Yung. Yung previously played a ninja in red in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Now she’ll play a ninja in red for Daredevil.

Rick and Morty season 2 starts up later this month on July 26th. I can’t wait. That show is fantastic. Above is a new ad they made that mimics toy ads of the 80s.

There will be a new Transformers cartoon aimed at a more grown up audience. It’s called Transformers: Combiner Wars and it’ll air on Machinima’s YouTube channel. This is the storyline in the current comics by IDW and the toys on the shelves. You can probably guess, but it’s about the Transformers (usually 5) that combine into a bigger robot. Gotta admit, my favorite Transformers when I was a kid were the combiners. Constructicons, Aerialbots, Stunticons, Combaticons, Protectobots. I had all of those. Now Vincent owns them. In related news, the new combiner Victorion made its toy debut at the San Diego Comic Con this weekend. It’s special because it’s the first all-female Autobot combiner team.

MERCHANDISE

This is one of the weirder toys I’ve seen lately. Apparently Mr. Potato Head is now licensing itself so there are Pop Culture Mr. Potato Heads. I guess it’s trying to get in on Funko’s seemingly infinite line of pop culture figures. They’re called Poptaters. I would have called them Mash Ups. Eh? Eh? Anyway, they’ve got them at Entertainment Earth and so far what they’ve created are Mr. Potato Heads mixed up with horror icons. Those are two seemingly different audiences, but I guess Funko has put the lie to that idea.

Toy News International says that Mattel has acquired the license to make new Thundercats toys. The rumor is they will be made in scale with their Masters of the Universe line. Thundercats keeps kicking around but never seems to quite break into the mainstream like G.I. Joe or Transformers, does it? I guess no one has quite cracked the perfect blend of great show along with great toys.

The upcoming Lego Dimensions game includes a ton of pop culture sets. Simpsons, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future and so on. One that I’m most excited for? Doctor Who. There’s a trailer for that and it reveals that the Doctor, Gandalf, and characters from The Lego Movie will all have their voices done by their respective actors. That’s pretty fun. I’m looking forward to September!

We’ll probably have a bunch of comics, toy, TV and movie news next week that will come out of this weekend’s San Diego Comic Con but we have one cool bit already. Hasbro announced a new Marvel Legends line based on Spider-Man and it will include Spider-Gwen, the super popular character from Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez’ alternate Spider-Man comic. It will be my first Marvel Legends purchase.

Finally, this is an INSANE story about how popular Hasbro’s new Stormtrooper figure was on Preview Night at the Comic Con. Totally worth a read. People are trampled and punched in the ribs to get one of these figures. The same figure that will be in stores everywhere in just four months, but in a black box instead of a white box. One guy has money stolen right out of his hand in the chaos. How many of the people buying one plan to sell it on eBay right away, do you think? 50%? More?

I pre-ordered the blu ray for Death of Superman Lives, but they won’t ship until next week at the earliest because the film makers are at SDCC. I am really looking forward to seeing it.

Skewed_View

So the blu rays of ‘The Death of Superman Lives’ haven’t shipped, but to thank us for our patience everyone who purchased a disc copy was provided a digital download today. I watched it this afternoon, and it was a really fun documentary. I was in high school when this movie was in development, and would search all over the relatively new world wide web for any information I could get on it. Almost everything I heard about it back then concerned me, and was convincing me that Burton had no business dealing with the character (oddly, I was fine with Cage’s casting).

I remember reading awful things about how Superman was not going to have his costume, but just wear a black leather jacket, and he wouldn’t fly but instead use a vehicle similar to the Super Powers Supermobile.

I am glad to see that none of those rumors were true. Still, the documentary did not convince me that the movie would have been good, because it sounds like Burton would never have been able to make the movie that he envisioned.

However, if everything had gone perfectly, and the studio had been sold on the story (wasn’t happening), and the budget needed was provided (also wasn’t going to happen), it does make me think that Burton and Cage would have delivered a very interesting version of Superman that could have adjusted how people viewed the character from then on.

I thought their ideas for the new character of ‘K’ were really cool, and I want to see that Brainiac in the comics or animation at some point!

Chris Piers

I can’t wait to see it. It looks really interesting to just see any kind of “what could have been” movie. The best version of that is probably Jodorowsky’s Dune. I’d also love to see one about George Miller’s Justice League.

Skewed_View

Well poo, I thought you had already watched it a couple of weeks ago, otherwise I would have simply kept my opinion to “I liked it.”
I’m really curious to hear your thoughts after seeing it.